If I quit smoking right now...

Just as the deadline got closer, I found a cheaper way to get cigarettes in Singapore.

Last new year's eve I promised myself that I would quit smoking this year (2007). I made a couple of attempts with varied successes but now the 'deadline' is drawing closer. 31st December is just a breath away, considering I have just 4 days left in Singapore before I go home, after which time will just fly. What's more, you can get cigarettes so cheap in Pakistan that it's nearly impossible to quit. Plus, you can buy loose cigarettes - so even if you are virtually penniless, you can still get a couple of cigarettes.

The discovery was made by my friend Don [not his real name] when he got his hands on Drum, a popular brand of fine-cut hand-rolling tobacco - or 'shag'. Don had been on student exchange to Europe where he discovered the bliss of shags and their low cost. Plus, the added joy of rolling cigarettes yourself was priceless.

When he arrived in Singapore, he was hit by the S$ 11.80 price of just one pack of cigarettes (thanks to "sin taxes" in Singapore). One packet of Drum costs S$ 12.90 plus 50 cents for 50 rolling papers. The packet itself can be used to make about 75 cigarettes - that is about 4 packs of regular cigarettes! The only issue is that you have to smoke without filters, which seems a little too hazardous for even the most eager smoker.

He searched and finally found Zig-Zags, a brand more commonly known as 'ziggies', available at a couple of news-stands in Holland Village. One packet of Zig-Zags filters costs just S$ 1.50 and has 150 filters - good to last for two packs of Drum! The discovery quickly made its way around many Pakistanis and many of them smoke Drum or Butterfly [another brand] now.

Why I started to discover the joy of rolling was primarily because I thought to myself, "I will need to put in so much work into making each cigarette, and with the added benefit of low cost, I am bound to reduce smoking."

Wrong.

I started smoking even more. From 10 cigarettes a day I went up to smoking 25 on average. Quitting smoking seems like a distant dream to me now.

But who knows what transformation awaits me upon arrival at my beloved city?

Quitting smoking is really hard, but with family around most of the time, it would definitely reduce my intake. That is certainly a healthy start, right?

I already know all there is to know about quitting, and if I am just in the right frame of mind, I just might do it before the 'deadline' - December 31, 2007.

Here's a graphic image I got from here about what would happen to my body if I quit smoking right now:


Random thought: I wondered why would they name a brand of tobacco "Drum"!? I guess Google Image Search gave me the answer - you can also buy a drum of Drum!

Quitters collect here...

I remember I got a random email in January this year. I had made an attempt to quit smoking around that time and I blogged about how I had quit. Apparently someone read that post and thought I had quit smoking successfully then when I really hadn't. So I was never able to answer the email. To be perfectly honest, I don't think I am currently in a position to advise on how to quit smoking, since my most successful attempt was also in vain. I intend to try to quit again (and I will never quit trying); till then, I will just share the email here.

Hey man,

You don't know me, and I dont know you. This is a fake email address, and that ain't my real name.

But I need your help. You quit smoking right. Its in that vein.

The guys I hang around with smoke, and till last semester, I was staunch against not smoking, but this sem, I dunno what happened, but I started, (half cos of the insanely cheap duty free cigs these guys had got). I thought that as long as I dont start buying packs, I wont start smoking 'proper'. Well, the duty free ones are over and I bought a pack today.

I cant even give a reason to why I started. Absolutely no explanation. Last week I decided that it was not worth it and that I wont smoke.

Apparently, that dint work, and 3 days later, I was smoking again. Today I bought a pack. Weekend, I smoked enough. (6 in a day is more than enough for me!)

I feel that Im getting hooked onto em, that too just for a few minutes of kick that the cigarette gives.

Fuck man, really, what do I do... Its tough being around these guys who smoke, my best friends.... but will power is something that's failed me, quite a few times now.

A month of smoking, i doubt its done any real harm to me yet, and I seriously dont wanna get hooked.. but I feel im getting hooked..

Please dude, if u can take some time out, and reply to this mail... ill be grateful..

Thanks a lot dude...

Marcos

P.S.: like i said, that aint my real name. This email isn't even how I type. Identity secrecy is a must.

Thinking...

I am somewhere in the middle of either deciding to stop buying more cigarettes or to quit. I have yet to make my final decision.

After all, I am able to quit during the day when I'm fasting. But the thing is, all day long I am looking forward to that smoke I have right after I open my fast. Hmmph...

The cigarette century

A new book argues that chemical waste causes cancer. - By Barron H. Lerner - Slate Magazine

Devra Davis wants chemical waste to become the new cigarette, an object that generates reflexive loathing from most Americans. And the pieces of the puzzle seem to be there: exposure-related cancers, decades of incriminating research, and cover-ups by the...

There you have it - something that is equally bad as cigarettes or smoking, yet no one chooses to look at it. These people who think they are 'enlightened' just because they think they know something smokers don't are not so enlightened after all. I mean, of course all smokers know smoking is bad for them. What sort of a comment is "Don't you know smoking is bad for you?"

Hello? A person who was born yesterday knows that. Here's some advice to all you people out there who think you're better than us just because you don't smoke:

Get a book on lung cancer. The odds that you get it are as high as any smoker getting it. Maybe even more.

Chimeral Desires

Wednesday night, in an attempt to reduce cost and amount smoked, I went half and half on a cigarette pack with a friend.

The result of having company while smoking: each of us smokers finished 10 cigarettes in two hours. (There are 20 in one pack.)

So far I haven't purchased any more cigarettes since then. I did, however, try to acquire cigarettes from friends around Sehri time, as the deadline to start fasting approached earlier in the morning today - but without any luck. I smoked Sheesha instead (which has almost zero percent nicotine).

Right now I am feeling more thirsty than I'm craving a smoke. Maybe I'll quit now?

To burn or not to burn

My previous attempt to quit smoking was quite successful (7.5 weeks!) until the time I got my hands on a carton of cigarettes - a generous gift from my sister. This is the fourth week since I started to smoke again.

Now, try as I might, I know that I can not blame my sister for this unsuccessful attempt. My self-control comes to be the culprit. After all, I did avoid smoking in spite of having a full carton under my nose for one whole week - until I smoked that 'fatal' cigarette. And then another. And another. And...

The holy month of Ramadan has arrived, which means I can't eat, drink or smoke from dawn till dusk everyday. In a way, it's like quitting smoking every day for a good number of hours (14).

On one hand I could use my belief in Islam and this holy month to help me try to quit smoking once again. But on the other hand what gets me through the day is the dream of smoking that one cigarette after Iftar or 'breaking fast' when the nicotine level in my blood is at its lowest.

So now I sit here in my room writing this at 2 am, when the deadline to eat, drink and smoke as much as I want approaches in a little more than two hours.

I am contemplating if I should go and burn another $11.60 to buy a pack or not.



And you know what, I think I'll buy just one more pack.

Damnit.

No Smoking

Ruminations: No Smoking

Quit smoking date: June 16th (Shubhangi's birthday)
Today's date: July 21st
Time elapsed: Exactly 5 weeks (more than a month!)

Have I made it this time? Have I really quit? My last attempt to quit was not successful. I quit quitting 9 days after my quit date. However, this is my second-most successful attempt to quit smoking cigarettes since the time I started smoking 13 years ago.

Goofy animation "No Smoking" explains smoking as experienced by smokers and quitting smoking as experienced by "quitters". (Thank you Omer for sharing this with me!)

[YouTube link]

"It's a Phylis Morrison!"

"Give the smoker enough room, and he will hang on to his habit."

Not this time.

Cold Turkey Day

Ruminations: Day 1/The Day/The Big Day/Cold Turkey Day/Quit Day

(Sunday, October 1, 2006)

My real age is 23 [on paper its 22]. The first time when I smoked was when I was 12. The first time I inhaled a cigarette [instead of just puffing] was the same year - 12. I would buy a couple of Gold Leaf cigarettes, and cycle away in some fields close to my residence area. Each day I bought a new pack of matches [Rs.1] and threw them away. For me there was no peer pressure to smoke. I guess I just wanted to do "something bad". It was the same time when I had developed that annoying little moustache, and of course, my voicebox grew in size so that it became an Adam's apple.

The first time I was suspected of smoking was when I was 14. My mother found a cigarette in a cassette cover and a smashed matchbox in my school bag's pocket that I had forgotten to throw away. I always had a pack of mint candies [HOEST] and in time my mother realised what the purpose of these candies was.

When I was 16, my being a smoker was no secret in the house. For one, the bathroom always smelt of smoke [I didn't bother going to the fields by then]. In school, I had classfellows who wouldn't stand next to me because I smelt of smoke. Of course, I used the school washrooms to smoke. One day I got late for my English class and my teacher, Hasan Shikoh, came after me and found me on the way. He detected the smoke immediately. Thank goodness he didn't make too much of a fuss. That was my closest call to being caught smoking in school.

The same year, my mother, upon realising I was becoming a hardcore smoker, got really upset. She came to my room and lit up a cigarette and said, "If you continue to smoke, I will take up smoking as well." I snatched the cigarette from her and promised her I would quit. That was the first time I tried to quit. It was also the most successful attempt because I stayed clean for a good 3 months.

The reason why I started smoking again was extremely stupid, but hey, I was a teenager with raging hormones! I used to work part-time everyday after school and there was this girl who was my age, did charity work in the same hospital, was filthy rich, and had taken up smoking very recently. Indeed, she was of the opinion that smoking is really cool. So when I got my first chance to be in a locked room with her, it was to smoke. She smoked Dunhills, so I had to get a Marlboro pack for me. There it was. I was a smoker again.

I didn't bother to be secretive about it. I made my peace with my mother, a caffeine addict, by telling her "I would quit smoking if you can stop being addicted to tea." She usually needs two huge mugs of tea every morning to get out of bed.

So its been 11 years since I've been a smoker. My lifestyle includes cigarettes in everything. And the biggest reason for me to stay a smoker: nicotine addiction. Most non-smokers don't understand nicotine addiction. Every human being has a certain level of nicotine in their blood - even people who don't smoke. When a person smokes, he or she actually increases the level of nicotine required in their blood. Now each time when the nicotine goes lower than that level he has become accustomed to, he craves cigarettes. Its what they call a physical [or biological] dependence [not just psychological].

And its been 7 years since I've been trying to quit. Most smokers plan to quit at one time or another, but they keep postponing. I've done that a lot, but I've also tried to set a Quit Day and quit smoking a number of times. Hardly any time did I go beyond 2 weeks without lighting up again.

The fact is, I'm HEAVILY addicted to nicotine. I can get rid of cigarettes and all psychological reasons for smoking [eg. talking over the phone and nothing to hold in my hand], but the moment I stop using Nicotine gum [Nicorette] or Nicotine lozenges [Nicotinell], I go back to smoking.

Despite all this, I'm trying to quit smoking again. And today is the Day 1 where I go cold turkey - cutting off cigarettes completely. I had three cigarettes the day before, in an attempt to cut down before the Quit Day. I don't have any reason why this attempt would be successful, especially because all my close friends here are smokers - 6 people : all smokers. The first week is the hardest, and then each day is hard - any setback could throw me back at smoking. And with the semester taking its toll with assignments, projects, group meetings for research papers etc., I really have to learn how to use my will power efficiently. But quitting smoking is something that needs to be done. And for now, I'm determined to make it happen.

I am driven to this point...

Hi everyone! So you have it! A journal of a smoker's ambitions to quit smoking... This may not be a very unique blog but if you are interested to see what happens to a smoker who wants to quit, check out this place. Happy reading!

PS. I'll be exporting some of my previous posts of when I tried to quit, so you know where I'm coming from.